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User talk:Tennessee Ernie Ford/Archive01
at a glance tables I noticed your working on an at a glance table on the Merchants page and editing the article live, have you considered using your Ernie Ford/Sandbox}} Sandbox as a blank canvas while you work on the table formating, then move it on to the article when your done? Just a suggestion, I personally find it very useful myself :) [[User:Hollowness|'Hollowness']] | Talk 00:37, January 20, 2010 (UTC) : Yes, I don't consider it appropriate for the sandbox for several reasons: :* It's meant to highlight the fact that the wiki lacks standard information on merchants. :* I'm not experimenting with the presentation or formatting; the layout and type of data is fairly standard for this type of thing. :* It's meant to be collaborative, not my personal view of at-a-glance. : If I were working on a personal (rather than shared) at-a-glance table, I'd simply create a perma-page in my user space and mention it on the discussion page. In the meantime, the current format encourages others to contribute. Thanks for the suggestion. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:45, January 20, 2010 (UTC) ::Well, you don't really have to explain yourself to me, I say this because it appears to be a work in progress which the sandbox is a perfect place to use and maybe if other contributers are editing while your editing, avoid a possible clash. And also so you are aware one of the admins has a work in progress with merchants and merchant page layouts (Project Bodahn) and may eventually override yours. 01:40, January 20, 2010 (UTC) ::: Erm, I'm not sure that I understand what you are asking. Wikis are inherently works in progress, especially new ones. The quick reference table is meant to be collaborative; putting it in my sandbox discourages community participation. I gathered the data that was available on the individual merchant articles, put it into a single table, and published it; this allows everyone to see how much info is actually available (alas, not much) and encourages peeps to fill in the gaps. ::: If Pwr905 has a great idea for a wiki-project to improve merchant data, I would encourage you to encourage them to make it easier for people to participate. I'm all in favor of anything that helps standardize and raise the level of information available. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 02:07, January 20, 2010 (UTC) ::::Clarification: work in progress formating. not inputting. As for the other remark I am not admin and merely forwarding information given to me, from an admin, when I ventured into merchant inputing, I saw such activity pertinent to the project, and gave the heads up (its still in my talk page). And a suggestion to the table formating (not the information) else were, was merely giving the heads up just in case you may be asked by admins, just trying to help (but alas) it seems you have taken it as a negative gesture. 02:37, January 20, 2010 (UTC) ::::: I'm still not sure what you are asking of me. The layout hasn't changed notably since I created the table. (I fixed some corruption caused when someone used the Rich Text Editor and compacted the buy/sell ratio data. Other than that, I believe everything else is the same, except for the data.) — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 03:24, January 20, 2010 (UTC) ::::::Judging by your comment on my page, I still think we have a block, I feel everything was straight forward and even that comment makes me thinks you do understand me (but you don't have to, it isn't mandatory :P). I'd really advise for you to see the talk pages of the admins and major editors to see what is the norm for communication, I feel that makes everything I said make sense. But its not an issue for anymore, I got the admins involved so you could feel validated and have some clarity on my intentions. I really hope this has made you feel better cause I had no intentions, as I said before to cause upset. I hope you take my advisement because there is no promise for full utilization of your projects page, I added the category to my main project pages but there no promises for everyone else. 03:13, February 1, 2010 (UTC) ::::::: I don't understand what you mean by a block. You have a plan for how to go forward with certain articles; I am not opposed. ::::::: I don't know what you mean by no promise for full utilization of '''your' projects page'' — it's a community page meant to foster collaboration. Lots of wikis, including wikipedia and central wikia, make use of similar tools. If, instead of making things easier, it's getting in the way, by all means delete it. (It's really just boiler plate with minor adjustments for Dragon Age Wiki.) ::::::: I am sorry that we seem to have trouble communicating with each other. I'm sure we will work this out at some point. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 07:01, February 1, 2010 (UTC) ::::::::I just meant 'block', by you still don't understand what I meant or even at current mean but we are getting close, cause if you did, I don't think you would have commented in that way. Oh, I am not going to delete your page, I think it is a great idea, when talking to the admins about this I mentioned your good idea. I just hope there is no frustration if people don't utilize it, but yes you are right it can make things easier and it is better to have it, than not :) 08:15, February 1, 2010 (UTC) Rephrasing Might want to take a look through my other edits to the World Map, and World Map Encounters also to see if they need anything changed. You can find my "To Do" list on my userpage, the completed ones. Mictlantecuhtli 23:28, January 30, 2010 (UTC) : Cool. I had no idea someone was working on this from looking at the various pages. Why not make a public project in the community space so that others can help share the work? (PS Thanks for correcting my typo — I clicked save too soon.) — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 23:54, January 30, 2010 (UTC) :: I'm kinda new to the wiki scene, how would I go about the public project thing? Help would be appreciated. Mictlantecuhtli 23:59, January 30, 2010 (UTC) ::: Oh! Well, welcome to wikis and wikia! ( ::: To make a public project, add it to the community project page and add it to the . It looks like this wiki hasn't created a formalized project format, so yours will be the first! (You can see some examples at Guild Wars Wiki.) ::: There are 3 reasons for making it public: :::* More people to share the work; :::* Prevents duplication of effort...or efforts that work against each other; :::* Allows other folks to discuss other ways of skinning the cat. (Generally, I find that my ideas are much improved after they become our ideas.) ::: This ultimately helps make the wiki a collaborative effort rather than a collection of individual efforts, which increases the likelihood that the wiki stays healthy after current contributors move on to other things. ::: Thanks for putting this together; I'm looking forward to seeing the results and helping out with one or more of your projects. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:45, January 31, 2010 (UTC) Projects Hi there! I'm not sure if you're going to be swinging by Talk:Merchants again, so I thought I'd drop you a message. I found the project page and categories you set up, and think these are really great. Before I noticed them, I'd already set up Forum:Management of wiki projects - it would be great if you could take a look at that and see whether you have anything to add. 01:25, February 1, 2010 (UTC) :Okay, following your great suggestions, I've been creating a draft page for my main project on this wiki and wonder if you could clarify something for me as I'm pretty new at this wiki editing thing. The project page you created suggests creating projects in the "Dragon Age" namespace, eg Age:World Map Standardization project}} Dragon Age:World Map Standardization project. Is this definitely right, or should it be the "Dragon Age Wiki" namespace, like the projects page you created itself? Creating a page in "Dragon Age Wiki" seems to result in a project page, whereas one in "Dragon Age" just gets labelled as a bog-standard article. (Oh, and if you're interested my draft project page is currently at Dragon Age Wiki:Project Genitivi). Thanks for your help! 16:29, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :: Heya! For someone supposedly new to wikis, you are doing a fairly awesome job! First, to answer your questions: ::* In which namespace do projects belong? they should be in Dragon Age Wiki, since they are articles about the wiki itself rather than the subject of the wiki (Dragon Age). (by the time you read this, I'll have fixed the examples on the project page; good catch!) ::* Project Gentivi looks awesome! (I like your use of color to denote progress.) :: These are some specific things I've seen people use on bigger projects: ::# The Overview section could also highlight where you'd like peeps to help first. ::# Symbols communicate progress overview quickly, e.g. , , , ::# Strikeout helps increase focus on what's important because it decreases focus on things that are no longer so important. :: Next, here are some other resources: ::* Wikia Central can sometimes offer useful tips (see my links on my guild wars user page) ::* GuildWiki's project page and its official counterpart are well organized gaming wiki project pages. Both websites do a lot of cool things with wiki code, including templates, dpl, and calculations. :: Do you know if this wiki has a style guide or policy articles? (I haven't found them yet.) :: Finally, I will take a look at the wiki project management forum. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:19, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :::I notice you are using your talk page for replies instead of Zoev's, users only get the 'you have a message' notice when people post on their talk page. Useful links: , Dragon Age Wiki:Manual of Style and Forum:Wiki_Discussion (better if you want to talk to the community about wiki discussion instead of just one user or an article discussion, and the best place to get input from admins and editors). 21:46, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :::: @Hollowness: On all other wikis to which I contribute, it is standard practice to reply to a question within the same section. Otherwise, it's nearly impossible to follow the thread. I review my watchlist to find out when people have replied. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:13, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :::::Well its not here, that is why I am letting you know, because you are speaking to Zoev she might check because she is active and a polite admin. I am just saying you might not get a response 100% by everyone you are talking to. Personally, I do not check peoples talk unless I recently posted them a message and I notice activity of the on the watch list. This is just an FYI of the practices of this wikia. 22:45, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :::::: Thanks for the information. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:51, February 3, 2010 (UTC) ::::::Yes, we do seem to have threads zig-zagging between people's talk pages here, at least until third parties get involved and it gets really confusing then shifted to the forum. I'm not sure why - I've just followed the herd - though as I've only been active on this wiki for a shortish while I'm not aware of the history behind the way we do things here. You're right though, TEF, that it can make it hard to follow threads. On the other hand, Hollowness is right that it's nice to get messages alerting one to new messages plus its a practice we're used to here. (Plus, I've just found that one problem with using one talk page is that each time I try to save my contribution, I get an edit conflict because you guys are much faster than me - that'll teach me not to write these essays!) I'd actually be happy to do things either way as I keep a check on my watchlist anyway. If you think, TEF, that conducting discussions wholly on one of the participants' talk pages would be a good thing to adopt as a wiki-wide policy, then please do put it out on Forum:Wiki Discussion for comment by other editors. In response to your question about policies and guidelines, Hollowness has already pointed out the key pages. There's also Category:Policies and, er, Category:Policies. So clearly some tidying up is needed! Loleil is currently working on getting together clear guidelines for this site so the situation should improve soon. And thanks for your tips and links. I'll definitely make use of them! 22:55, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :::::::One more potentially useful link: Dragon Age Wiki:Editing Guidelines. And I've just confirmed with Loleil that Category:Policies, and the policies in it, will be removed ... so Category:Policies is the one to look at. 00:01, February 4, 2010 (UTC) ::::::::And ... sorry to be doing this in dribs and drabs ... I think this is fairly standard so you're probably aware of it, but we also have standard templates for different article types with names starting "MediaWiki:Createplate". These are available when using the "Create new article" option in the left hand menu, and can be quite handy to look at if you want to see the latest "proper" format for various article types such as locations, quest, etc. As with any other element of the wiki, we're always on the lookout for ways of improving these, so if you have any suggestions, please do post them in Forum:Wiki Discussion. 11:52, February 4, 2010 (UTC) ::::::::: I hadn't seen "Createplate" — very cool. I had just been copying the style from existing articles and applying the 3-line rule. However, more often I've been trying to leave article creation to others; I don't have a very good sense of which infoboxes are better to use or when (there seem to be a number of similar/duplicate). And I definitely don't understand when the transform template is preferred over others. ::::::::: Anyhow, I will take a look at some more of the templates; if nothing else, I can help categorize and document them so that others can find/use them more easily. Thanks for the tips (dribs/drabs are good!) — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:09, February 4, 2010 (UTC) re: Kudos Thanks for your kudos. You might want to change Template:SpoilerTST and Template:SpoilerTC as well. The three of them are sister templates. -- 23:22, February 4, 2010 (UTC) : Just noticed those other two and was in the process of standardizing :-) (Tierrie: quickest draw in the west!) —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 23:23, February 4, 2010 (UTC) :: Haha! I just happened to finishing up work on the Bodahn page and the Template:MerchantTableRow pages. The spoilers are nice by themselves, but they also use javascript to save the user's last click and is (somewhat) persistant across the entire wiki. That was my masterpiece ;) -- 23:30, February 4, 2010 (UTC) ::: It's completely brilliant! I'm thinking of stealing it for another wiki :-) —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 23:35, February 4, 2010 (UTC) Approval Hey, I just asked Polexian to take a look at templating approval. I have been watching your updates and you know what you're doing - so I wanted to see if you can give him some feedback on his page. Perhaps suggest other styles or design. -- 04:57, February 10, 2010 (UTC) : Sure! Glad to help. —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 07:00, February 10, 2010 (UTC) ::Would love your help, I'm going to mark up a template as an example then we can brainstorm on making it better. Also don't you think should take on the background of the page? I don't think it looks good as a dark zero, blueish in color. Makes it kinda hard to read on my end. Polexian[[User_talk:Polexian| ♦♦Talk♦♦]][http://dragonage.wikia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Polexian&action=edit&section=new ♠♠Leave Message♠♠] 13:10, February 10, 2010 (UTC) ::: Cool; keep me posted. ::: re: — absolutely it should take on the background. Is there a way to do that using paint.exe? —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 22:12, February 10, 2010 (UTC) ::::Guys, that icon looks like what would happen if a smurf got punched in the face. Time to look for a new one. -- 22:41, February 10, 2010 (UTC) ::::: Funny you mention that: my guild wars toon did punch a smurf in the face ;-) More seriously, I'm terrible at artwork, so I'm happy if someone can put something together. I think any empty circle that is not green or red will do (green is used for and red for ). —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 23:25, February 10, 2010 (UTC) ::::::Gifts uses ascii with bold + color to achieve it. Why don't you look at that? Or Template:Argument. Sometimes what you need may already been done ;) -- 23:50, February 10, 2010 (UTC) ::::::: And in the case of The Golem in Honnleath, why not just leave it blank. I can't think of anything that's more obvious than nothing. -- 23:54, February 10, 2010 (UTC) :::::::Original Template finished. Check it out, give me some feedback. :::::::User_talk:Polexian/Sandbox2 Polexian[[User_talk:Polexian| ♦♦Talk♦♦]][http://dragonage.wikia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Polexian&action=edit&section=new ♠♠Leave Message♠♠] 04:33, February 11, 2010 (UTC) re-indent apologies to Polexian: I changed some syntax on your original post; it was causing my talk to show up with error messages. I love the postive & negative hearts! Awesome! I also dig the single template to accomplish many things. Nice work! Two minor issues (I don't think they need to be solved before going live): * The icons seem a bit large to me compared to how they look in a standard table. (see below) * You cannot use the icon version in a table unless each cell is on its own line (this is, apparently, tricky to code — I think as long as it's mentioned in the template documentation, this shouldn't be a big deal). Short story: great job! Will make approvals easier to track and prettier to look at. Grats! —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 02:46, February 18, 2010 (UTC) :"cannot use the icon version in a table unless each cell is on its own line" Is the following code an example of what you meant? or something else? Jmjimmy 05:51, February 18, 2010 (UTC) :: Yes. That code fails. However, this following will work works: | | :: I don't know too many wiki templates that manage to work inside tables without using that trick. —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 08:34, February 19, 2010 (UTC) :::Ahh ok, that was fixed when I fixed the indenting issue. (I updated the table below as a demonstration). Jmjimmy 15:46, February 19, 2010 (UTC) :::: Awesome! (I'll have to steal that trick ;-) —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 01:37, February 20, 2010 (UTC) Examples * Looking at inline and what happens in Also considering what happens when the paragraph is very long and contains more than a few examples of approvals, such as . Then lots of blah blah blah blah. Followed by more blah blah blah blah. Afterwards, more blah blah blah blah. Also consider blah blah blah blah; but blah blah blah blah. However, blah blah blah blah. And finally, . ColorTemplates Hi! I noticed you were doing some documentation on the ColorTemplates and broke them. I fixed it so don't worry about it. There was an infinite recursion in your inclusions. I'm not sure exactly where, but you might be able to figure it out from the History if you're interested. Cheers! -- 02:28, February 18, 2010 (UTC) :I just realized what happened. You added the tags but did not include the tags. Its the onlyinclude tags that exclude the rest of the template from being included. So essentially what happened was that the template was being included over and over again. No big deal ;) -- tierrie talk 02:30, February 18, 2010 (UTC) :: Yeah, my apologies. I misremembered my syntax (and forgot to compare against a known good). Poor judgment on my part. :-( :: I tried to fix them as soon as I noticed; you and Hollowness were too quick for me. Thanks! —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 02:37, February 18, 2010 (UTC) :::No big deal. My first one thousand edits was 20% edits, 80% undos. I had to bribe a lot of admins to pretend it never happened. -- 02:54, February 18, 2010 (UTC) Approval We're still nailing down the final steps of the approvals. Give us a day or two to nail out the details. -- 09:06, February 19, 2010 (UTC) : Sure. —''Tennessee Ernie Ford'' (TEF) 01:35, February 20, 2010 (UTC)